Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message

Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian philosopher of communication theory. His work is viewed as one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory, as well as having practical applications in the advertising and television industries. McLuhan is known for coining the expressions the medium is the message and the global village, and for predicting the World Wide Web almost thirty years before it was invented. With the arrival of the internet there was renewed interest in his work and perspective. The time is ripe for a fresh appraisal of his thought--an enterprise to which Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message makes an indispensable contribution. Aside from providing that service, this biography tells a story that is fascinating in its own right, especially as it illuminates the enormous gap between the “media guru” and the real man in all his complexities and contradictions. "The medium is the message" is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. The phrase was introduced in his most widely known book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964. McLuhan proposes that a medium itself, not the content it carries, should be the focus of study. He said that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but also by the characteristics of the medium itself.